THEATER: A Symbolic Nation Aspires to the International; A Symbolic Nation Aspires to the International

By JACQUES GODBOUT

Published: September 16, 2001

MONTREAL—
WOULD the idea of holding a Quebec arts festival in New York have occurred to anyone 20 years ago? Probably not. We Quebecers were then still searching for an identity, unsure of our relationship to the Americas, embroiled in a literary and theatrical adventure in a French language that wavered among standardized forms, archaisms and original expressions invented to communicate our lives in our seasons. Our cinema aspired to documentary values.

What gave Québécois culture its strength 20 years ago resulted from a profound questioning of traditional values and the identification of the larger artistic community with a national project. Today, in all the arts, under the influence of globalization, Quebec artists have become autonomous individuals. The project for political sovereignty, it seems, has succeeded only on the personal level. Our national culture aspires to be international, and Quebec, which is still only a symbolic country, regularly showcases its arts abroad, as it is doing in the festival Quebec/ New York 2001, which was to begin on Thursday and runs until Oct. 7.

Quebec culture is influenced by intellectual life in Paris (we share the same language) and by the creative energy of New York (we are almost neighbors). This is felt in the rhythm of our television shows, in our comedians, in the ambition to make Montreal a world center for contemporary dance.

If we issue from both Hollywood and St.-Germain-des-Prés, if our heads are often in Europe but our hearts in the Americas, this is not because of any split personality; it is simply our way of existing. Relations between Quebecers and Americans (we prefer to call them ''United-Statesians,'' since we, too, inhabit the Americas) are friendly, ancient and deep. In our national history, for example, our French ancestors were the first to cross the New World from east to west, to explore the Mississippi Delta and to settle Detroit and St. Louis. So you will understand our concern about the image Quebec projects in the world, and especially in the United States.

The situation is delicate. Not since the Major League Baseball Players Association strike of 1994 have the Montreal Expos led the National League standings; the Montreal Canadiens are a pale shadow of the kings of the ice that they once were. Worse still: Mordecai Richler, taking advantage of his fame as a novelist, began a malicious campaign in The New Yorker a decade ago, which he followed up with a book, ''Oh Canada! Oh Quebec!,'' in which he denounced, more or less honestly, the project for a sovereign and French Quebec. How far did his mudslinging carry?

Richler was, though he would disdain the term, Quebec's greatest writer. He died too soon, for his wife, his children, his friends and, of course, his readers; but also too soon to celebrate this ''Quebec Fall,'' which follows the ''Quebec Spring'' presented in France two years ago. This man who never tired of denouncing the desire of Quebecers to exist in French could nonetheless have kicked off the New York festivities with a blast and could perhaps even have finally apologized, with his timid half-smile, for having described his French-speaking compatriots as raving fanatics.

Quebec numbers six million Francophones (French speakers) and one million Anglophones. Richler, an Anglophone who left Montreal for London in 1954, at 23, not to return until 1972, in his 40's, never really understood what had happened to his country during his absence.

Richler's Quebec dated back to his childhood, and to mine. It was a rural-minded province, dominated by soutane-clad bigots and peopled by workers exploited by Anglo-American big business. It was led by the autocratic head of a nationalist party, and its citizens were instructed to devote their energies to preparing for the next world rather than trying to improve their lot in this one.

Yet while Richler was in England, laying the foundations of his career as a writer, our country, with its siege mentality, was undergoing a cultural mutation of unimaginable breadth. Within a decade or so after he left, a silent people began to speak, its artists and businessmen to embark on new projects, and visitors to discover, on the occasion of Expo '67, a Quebec in a state of social and political ferment, in stride with other cultural movements around the globe.

This was the Quiet Revolution, taking place without bloody confrontations or massive demonstrations in the streets. Long in the making, the transformation was no doubt a belated response to World War II. The war had brought new wealth to Canada, stimulated industry and opened up offices and factories to women; the soldiers who returned from the European front were no longer the trembling youths who had left the banks of the St. Lawrence River in 1940.

But the Roman Catholic Church, still maintaining its stranglehold on Quebec society, controlled social life from birth to death, ran schools and hospitals, censored the press and kept a tight lid on the intellectual and artistic pot. One example from many: in 1959, cinephiles who wanted to see the complete version of one of the films of the French New Wave had to drive from Montreal to New York, eight hours on the road, to outwit the censors.

Jacques Godbout has published essays in Montreal and novels in Paris. He has made more than 30 films, including 4 features, all produced by the National Film Board of Canada. This article was translated from the French by Robert Gray, Kinograph.